Blogs and Commentary

Despite Storm, Long Island Teams Doing OK

"Jac, you're going to have to speak up. We're kind of in the
middle of a hurricane here."

That's what SeanMichael Pagano, the head coach at Briarcliffe
– an MCLA-II school located in central Long Island –
told me as I checked in on him Monday night at the height of
Hurricane Sandy, which was battering the lacrosse hotbed.

It didn't help that there was an alarm creating quite a din
during our conversation. Pagano, who has turned the Bulldogs into a
non-varsity power, is also an investigator in the New York State
Police department, working mostly with rape cases and homicides.
With Sandy unleashed, he was transferred to what he called
"anti-looting patrol" with a state trooper.

"That alarm you just heard, we're at a building and the alarm is
going off so we raced over here," said Pagano. "It was just the
electricity that went out and released the magnetic doors, so the
alarm started going. People usually don't loot in the middle of a
hurricane – they wait until the end – but the weather
is kind of crazy. There are a lot of trees down and the car is
rocking while we're driving. But there are still some crazy people
out, driving around and seeing what's going on. At least I'm
getting paid for this."

Pagano doesn't get paid much to coach at Briarcliffe despite the
program's ascendency, but for him, like all coaches on Long Island
and those in the path of Sandy, it's all about the safety of the
players. Briarcliffe, located in the middle of the island, has
closed its campus and sent its students home.

Dowling, like Briarcliffe, has multiple campuses. Dowling's
Oakdale site, the home of the defending Division II national
champion Lions, was evacuated because it's situated on low-lying
areas, according to Dowling head coach Tim Boyle. As such, the site
was evacuated and those students who didn't head home were shipped
off to the Brookhaven dorms. Those few members of Boyle's team who
couldn't make it home were billeted by other members of the
program.

"They are all in good shape," said Boyle.

Boyle is far from minimizing what has been going on.

He's seeing it first hand.

"Right now, I'm looking at limbs literally flying down our
street," Boyle said. "My back yard is riddled with large limbs. The
neighbors' fence is down. A couple of panels of my siding have come
off and we'll deal with that Wednesday. There was a tree down on
the street that I had to move this morning. We're fortunate right
now. We're out of the flood zone, but there are a lot of people
down here who are a lot worse off than we are."

Gene Peluso, the head coach at Stevens, also lives on Long
Island.

"We're holding steady here," he said. "I placed a friendly wager
with my 13-year-old daughter about when the power would go off, but
the power is still on, so she's winning the wager. I'm thinking
it's going to be okay. Obviously, Hoboken is a different
story."

And, obviously, Hoboken is on Peluso's mind. The Division III
school is located in the New Jersey suburb and, unlike Dowling and
Briarcliffe, the Ducks draw from a more national demographic,
meaning more of his players are tethered to campus. "We've got kids
from Wisconsin and California," he said.

The City of Hoboken has instituted a curfew, locking students to
their dorms, and many of the first and second floor apartments near
the campus have been evacuated.

"It's pretty dicey," said Peluso. "It's kind of a sit around and
wait thing, and that's what we've been doing since this morning.
I've been communicating with [assistant coach] Matt Madalon and
just trying to make sure everyone is okay and safe."

Peluso recalled his freshman year at Nazareth in 1991 when an
ice storm paralyzed the Rochester region for nearly a week, and
then-coach Scott Nelson had to account for his players through
phone calls or foot patrol. In the age of cell phones, email and
social media, it's easier to both check in with the players and
keep parents in the loop.

"It's still nerve-racking," Peluso said. "We don't know what
Hurricane Sandy has in store, so we just have to sit and wait. But
I sent something out on Facebook asking where everybody was at, and
people started filtering in. 'We're playing video games and the
power is still on,' they responded; things like that. The coach in
me wants them to be studying, but they are thinking about a day off
tomorrow and they'll get to study when things get back to the
status quo."

Pagano's kids were using social media, as well.

"They are all at home tweeting on their twitter accounts about
how important they are," said Pagano, with a laugh. "They have no
idea how lucky they are. I have two kids and a pregnant wife at
home who are wondering how they are going to ride this storm out
without me."

College players on Long Island and nearby appear to be well
taken care of. Let's hope it stays that way.